Black History Month - Family
February 2021
Black History Month: The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity
Trailblazers- Phillis Wheatley
Because the works of an African were not appreciated by English colonists in America, her owners took her to London, England in hopes of gaining a paying audience. The first edition of her work, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) became the first volume of poetry by an African American published in modern times.
Listen on C-SPAN
Community/Family- Black Wall Street
The new area was named Greenwood. The Greenwood District became a hub for black entrepreneurs that may not have had any other opportunity in the Jim Crow South. Black-owned businesses developed including hotels, dining halls, a movie theater, grocery stores, luxury shops, schools, doctor offices, lawyer offices, and a residential neighborhood. The Tulsa Greenwood area with roughly 10,000 residents became one of the “wealthiest Black communities in the U.S. and a center of Black wealth.”
Greenwood was located only blocks for a white neighborhood. Racial tensions escalated in 1921. An armed mob descended on the community and attacked Greenwood, burning it to the ground on June 1,1921. As many as 300 people (mostly black) perished and hundred more were injured. This event became known as the Tulsa Massacre. Greenwood was eventually rebuilt by the residents that remained in the area and today Greenwood Avenue is its main thoroughfare.
Listen on C-SPAN- Black Wall Street, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch Discussing the Tulsa Massacre, and 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
Educational Achievement- Rosenwald Schools
In the 1900s, most black school children had little options and were forced to attend classes in a dilapidated builded, with discarded furniture, and out of date text-books. Rosenwald believed that “if any segment of its people were left behind,” the country could not prosper. He used the wealth gained from being employed at Sears Roebuck and Company (at the time, the largest mail order catalog company) and awarded Booker T. Washington, the founder of Tuskegee Institute, money to begin a black teacher-training program.
From this point, many schools were built in the south and other donors began to contribute to the endeavor. Texas received multiple grants and built 464 schools in 52 counties. By the time the last construction project ended in 1932, 15 states had Rosenwald schools serving an estimated one-third of the area black school children.
Listen on C-SPAN
Atrice Adeniyi- MISD Social Studies Department
Email: aadeniyi@mesquiteisd.org
Phone: 972-882-7515
Twitter: @misdsocstudies